Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Last week,
an acquaintance I was talking to on the phone commented on how tired I sounded. I
was surprised. Yes, I was tired, as I
often seem to be, but I hadn’t realized that my voice had betrayed this. After
all, there have been plenty of days recently where I’ve been even more tired. I had thought I was doing a
pretty good job of keeping up my end of the conversation despite my occasional
pauses where I’d grasp for the right word.

After hanging
up, I felt a little sad as I thought about how for the majority of these last
two years since my son was born, I’ve been functioning at a sub-par level. How
although I’ve been able to congratulate myself for still managing to write,
volunteer, and finally get back into teaching, all while taking care of Cedar,
I’m still only achieving a fraction of what I might be capable of if I woke up
every day refreshed-- if I, for just one night, actually had an unbroken
night’s sleep, and didn’t still consider a night where Cedar “only” wakes two
times a “good” night. Big sigh. Yes, sleep has been a saga.

A lack of
sleep has been the main reason why I have posted so little on this blog over
the last couple months. It’s not that I haven’t tried to write new entries, but
I’ve been so tired every time I actually have a chunk of time to write (and not
pay bills, do dishes, shop, cook, etc.), that I’ve just ended up spewing out a
convoluted tangle of words. I’ve logged three attempts at blog posts in the last
couple months, and not surprisingly the topics have revolved around sleep—or
topics related to sleep, like breastfeeding and weaning (for if I night-weaned
perhaps I’d get a better night’s sleep?) or co-sleeping vs. giving Cedar his
own bed (because maybe he’ll sleep better if he’s alone, or maybe he’ll sleep
worse?).

It’s sad when
you’re so used to sleep deprivation that you don’t even realize you are
functioning in a compromised state anymore, when it’s just become your reality.
If I pause to think about it, I can specifically recall the few mornings at Cedar’s preschool co-op
where I’d gotten more rest the night before (and/or indulged in coffee), and thus
actually had the energy to start up conversations with the other moms around
the snack table. I can’t help but wonder if non-sleep deprived moms still do
things like leave the keys in the front door. And I get so tired of answering
the question, “How are you?” with “Tired” because that’s the only word that
really sums up my condition.

Anyway, needless
to say, I’ve been sorely needing some change on the sleep front. Initially I
considered night weaning as the first line of attack, banking on what others have
said about how night weaning leads to fewer night wakings. But the idea of
night weaning while co-sleeping, of having to lie right next to my son and then
deny him my breast which he has used to fall back to sleep from day one, and
then having to listen to him howl and rage (and quite possibly hit or grab?), does
not sound ideal. I would probably end up getting out of bed to “sleep” on the
couch (or rather to listen on the couch, since you can hear everything in this
house), while letting my husband deal with the brunt of my son’s fury. There’s
no knowing how long this might have to go on before my son would accept the new
status quo, and no saying if once I moved back into the bed if he wouldn’t just
fuss for “milk” all over again.

So, I talked
myself out of that approach. Instead, we decided that an easier strategy might
be to first make the transition of getting Cedar used to sleeping in his own
bed—no small task in itself since we’ve co-slept since Day One. Then over the
last month we have slowly began to clear room in the corner of our living room
where our king-sized bed would now live, and in the bedroom in its place we
installed a full-sized futon for Cedar.

Week by week,
friends kept asking if we’d moved the bed yet, and I would explain how busy my
husband and I were, and how we had to pick a date a whole month out in advance where
we would both be home and have childcare for Cedar while we made the final furniture
switcharoo. (We didn’t want him to be home while we did it because, based on
past experiences, we figured it would be more upsetting for him to be involved
in the chaotic rearranging process—especially while Matthew and I were both
busy-- than to simply come home to it all nice and arranged anew.)

Finally, after
a month of anticipation, we moved the beds.

From one
perspective, the move has gone quite smoothly. Cedar liked his new bed, sheets,
and rug, and with the exception of seeming a little weirded out by the changes the first few nights (as in,
being hyper-aware any time he woke up and calling out, “New bed!”), he hasn’t
seemed upset at all that his “old bed” is now in the living room. But I know
that this “success” is only the first small step toward our larger intentions
of one day having him sleep alone, and one day, finally, please Lord, sleeping
through the night.

So far when
Cedar wakes up around midnight, I’ve ended up crawling into his new futon and
staying for the rest of the night. Prior to that, I lie with my husband in “the
big bed” in the living room, feeling strange to not have his little body and
sweet breath at my side. So strange in fact that I could not go to sleep hardly
at all for a few nights, hyper-alert of any sounds coming out of his room,
knowing he was going to eventually wake up and that I would then rush to his
side, ready to assure him that Mama was still here, even if he couldn’t find me
immediately upon waking.

I want to do
this whole thing gradually and gently. After all, it isn’t as simple as what
most parents go through when they make the switch for their children from a
crib to a toddler bed; it isn’t just about changing the bed. It’s about
changing his—and my-- entire way of sleeping at night. I don’t want it to feel
like we are “banishing him” from his old place of belonging next to Mama, and
forcing him to “grow up” overnight, tears be damned.

Maybe if I
could actually fall asleep again before midnight then I wouldn’t be so
hyper-aware when wakes, and maybe he’d surprise me some night by actually going
back to sleep on his own. But so far, it doesn’t seem this way. So far, neither
Mama nor Cedar are used to being in separate beds.

***

When you’re
chronically sleep deprived, it’s hard to embark on any big changes that
threaten that sleep is going to first get worse
before it could potentially get better. After several nights last week with
insomnia, (and prior to that about 3-4 months of a downward spiral of Cedar
waking more at night-- was it from teething? Teething’s always an easy target.)
I still just want to get a decent night’s sleep. Not great, just decent. So
after lying awake for a couple hours away from my son, I practically run to his
room now when I feel I’ve “given the separation thing a fair shot” and can call
it good, settling back in snuggled next to him where it feels like I belong.

I don’t think
I realized how hard not sleeping--or trying not to sleep-- next to my son would
be on me. I don’t think I realized just how much of me truly loves it, or is
deeply attached to it, despite the agony of being consistently woken or
squished or lay upon by a thirty-pound nursing toddler.

I love the
intimacy of being able to snuggle in and settle down with relief at the end of
the night next to my son. I love the way his head will stretch out to find my
shoulder in his sleep, or his hand will rest on my arm, and how I can tell that
this physical closeness—even as he sleeps—comforts him. All is right in the
world; Mama is here.

But I also
admit that perhaps I suffer from my own form of separation anxiety. From the
beginning it did not feel right to sleep apart from my son, and my desire to
stay close to him has not abated. It was heavily reinforced during the first year
and a half of his life when he’d often wake up in pain from gas; I would rush
to his side or else already be right there to bring him to my breast and offer
physical relief to his tummy. And by now? I’m just conditioned to hurry to his
side.

Perhaps I have
a touch of PTSD from this period I joke, although I’m actually serious (even if
a diagnosis PTSD may be too extreme). Because there is some part of me that still bolts up to attention when my son cries
out for me at night, especially now that I’m lying in the big bed apart from
him, trying to go to sleep on one hand while the other part of me is just lying
there, aware of the silence, waiting for Cedar to wake up.

For now I
console myself with the fact that even though we are a way’s off from
proclaiming any true success in the sleep department, at least we’ve already
reaped some benefits from the big move. For one, it feels great to have another comfy space to hang out in the evening hours,
to luxuriously spread out and read in bed, or to lie, talk, and be intimate
with my husband, just the two of us. I am also fond of sitting on the bed
during the day and reading or writing, occasionally glancing up to look out the
adjacent window. Miles, our cat, likes the added lounging space as well and has
quickly tried to assume his old spot sleeping next to our sides. And the space
that the bed occupies actually looks more streamlined and visually pleasing now
than it did before when it was filled with a bunch of clutter. And finally, even
if I’m still mostly sleeping with Cedar and he’s still waking, I think overall
I’m sleeping a tad better because I’m not sandwiched between two people.

After sleeping
next to my son for two years and counting, after never having felt like there was
a right month, developmental milestone, or moment where he or I were “ready” to
make a sudden change, it’s hard to
try and change it now all at once. It starts to make me question if even a good
night’s sleep is worth the sadness of taking away the bond we have through
co-sleeping. Though a larger part of me feels like it’s time, I still worry
about how this could lead to more separation anxiety for Cedar or more tantrums.
It makes me wonder (not aloud until now) whether it’d be such a bad thing to go to bed with my husband and then keep
sleeping with Cedar for part of the night. After all, it’s up to us to decide “what
works.”

At the end of
the day, I just want the solution that will guarantee the most and best sleep
for everyone.

And yet… at
the end of two years, I gotta
ask myself if it isn’t time to bite the bullet and do something hard. Now, two
weeks into this whole bed-change thing, I’m starting to suspect again that the more
critical change that needs to happen is night weaning. So many people I have
talked to who were in similar situations have confirmed that once they
night-weaned (or weaned for good), their chronic poor sleepers started sleeping
SO much better. The lure of this promise looms big. Not to mention the fear that
taunts, The longer you wait, the harder
it may get.

Every child is
different, of course. Some kids “wean themselves” at 12 months, 18, or 24.
Others, like mine, I suspect would just keep going and going if I let him. I’m
not okay with nursing Cedar until he’s five. At least I don’t think I am. Even
until he’s three is sounds a bit long, even if I have always said that is my
cut off point. I do want to keep going for a while, especially since nutritionally it still helps my peace of mind so much to know he's getting the extra protein from my milk since he can't tolerate much dairy or soy. But now, I’m thinking I’d like to wean by the end of the summer—by
the time he’s two and a half or so. Mostly because of the fear that the stronger,
more verbal, and more demanding my son gets, the harder it will be to wean.

Basically,
until we’re willing to lose more sleep while I night wean (meaning telling
Cedar that Mama and milk need to sleep and that he can no longer have milk at
night-- or at least “until the sun comes up”), I’ve realized that sleep isn’t
gonna get a whole lot better. And so Matthew has agreed to play the role of the enforcer,
going in when Cedar wakes up to bear the bad news, because it feels like it
will be easier this way than if I tried to deny Cedar my milk while it was
right there in front of him (especially if, say, he’s been crying for an hour
and we all just desperately want to go back to sleep).

I told
Cedar last night about our plan. That in a few days, there wasn’t going to be
any more milk at night, and Baba was going to come in to Cedar when he woke. I
didn’t elaborate much further; I didn’t emphasize how Mama and Cedar would no
longer be sleeping together at night. I just said, no milk.

Cedar listened
closely, then clung to me. I’m not sure what he understood, for instance I
don’t think he knows what “in a few days” means, but obviously he got the gist
of it. I will continue to remind him in the coming two days, and then on that
last night, I will tell him, “this is the last night,” just so the pain of
change will come as less of a slap of surprise. Then our plan is for Matthew to
start putting him down every night (right now we alternate), because we think
it will be easier for Cedar to wake to Baba’s presence if that’s what he’s gone
to sleep with as well.

I know that
once we start this process, we’ll have to stick with it lest we want to
backtrack and erase whatever work we’ve already invested. So we’ve picked our
night to begin; we’ve steeled ourselves for a long, sleep-deprived weekend to
follow. And then we hope, pray, that within a few days it will already start to
get better, and that within a few weeks, the transition will be complete.

Sounds so
easy, huh? Right. No one says it’s easy. But plenty of parents have done this
before. I guess it’s finally our turn.

LinkWithin

Sign Up for my Seasonal Newsletter! (Writing and Workshop Updates a few times a year.)

Find Me on Facebook

Search This Blog

WELCOME:

My name is Anne Liu Kellor, and I am a writer, teacher, and mother living in Seattle. My memoir about my years spent migrating between China, Tibet, and America, Searching for the Heart Radical, explores themes of language, love, and belonging, and is now in search of a publisher. I facilitate writing workshops in the Northwest, and work one-on-one with folks as a mentor and editor. I hope you enjoy my blog.